ICAC: Joe Tripodi in the hot seat

That concludes the all-star lineup of Labor witnesses at the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Eric Roozendaal, who followed Joe Tripodi, Kristina Keneally and Labor staffer Ian McNamara into the box on Monday, will continue giving evidence on Tuesday.

The commission will then shift its focus back to Liberal heavyweights, with former energy minister Chris Hartcher and Garry Edwards, the Liberal member for Swansea, both expected to give evidence on Tuesday.

Hartcher and Edwards are sitting with five of their Liberal colleagues on the cross bench during the ICAC inquiry, which is focused principally on allegedly illicit donations paid to the Liberals before the March 2011 state election.

Thanks for reading our live blog.

2:03pm on 1 Sep 2014

What's all this, then? Counsel assisting the ICAC, Geoffrey Watson, SC, asks Eric Roozendaal in the last minutes of the hearing if he gave instructions for his emails relating to Tinkler's coal terminal plan to be erased.

"I don't recall giving any instructions," Roozendaal says.

1:59pm on 1 Sep 2014

Roozendaal says he regarded a project rivalling Nathan Tinkler's plans for a coal terminal at Newcastle as a "marginal project at best".

Asked about the source of that opinion, he says it was something that was "put to [him]" by Mr Tinkler's property development company Buildev.

"Your source of information was Buildev?" counsel assisting the ICAC, Geoffrey Watson, SC, asks, in a tone dripping with incredulity.

Watson asks if he regarded this as an "unbiased commentary".

"Not at all," Roozendaal replies.

The ICAC is investigating allegations the former treasurer took steps "quite improperly" to benefit Buildev over its plans for a coal loader.

The inquiry has heard that senior bureaucrats and Mr Roozendaal's own advisers regarded Buildev's coal terminal plan a "dog of a project" and could not understand why Roozendaal wanted it to be considered.

This is laughable. Roozendaal said he was told Buildev's rival project was a marginal project. And who told him that? Buildev. #icac

Roozendaal is being asked why no other companies apart from Nathan Tinkler's Buildev were asked to submit a proposal for a coal terminal in Newcastle.

"Clearly Mr Tinkler is a key player in the coal industry," the former NSW treasurer says.

"Was," Commissioner Megan Latham rejoins.

1:43pm on 1 Sep 2014

Eric Roozendaal is in the witness box.

The former Labor treasurer agrees that corrupt former minister Joe Tripodi told him hewas meeting with executives from Nathan Tinkler's company Buildev in late 2010.

"He was advocating, in a sense, for their proposal," Roozendaal says of Buildev's plans for a coal terminal in Newcastle.

Tripodi won't appreciate that comment.

Former Labor minister Eric Roozendaal. Photo: Kate GeraghtyBack to top

1:31pm on 1 Sep 2014

Former Labor treasurer Eric Roozendaal is the next witness on the list, and we may hear from him today if his own silk speeds up his questioning of Labor staffer Ian McNamara.

Roozendaal has been sitting at the back of the ICAC hearing room for days, and faces tough questions about whether he "took steps", quite improperly, to benefit Nathan Tinkler's company Buildev over its plans for a coal loader in Newcastle.

1:07pm on 1 Sep 2014

A couple of legal eagles are squawking about new documents being shown during Ian McNamara's evidence.

Commissioner Megan Latham allows an adjournment until 3.15pm so that Joe Tripodi's silk Maurice Neil can "seek instructions" on those documents before questioning McNamara.

#ICAC is taking a short adjournment (only until 3.15) so that Joe Tripodi's brief can seek instructions from his client on new documents.

He is asked whether he leaked a confidential Treasury document hurting McKay's re-election prospects as the Labor MP for the seat of Newcastle and replies with an emphatic "no".

The ICAC has heard evidence that Joe Tripodi was the source of the leaked document.

Former premier Kristina Keneally gave evidence earlier today that if any Labor figures were involved in undermining McKay, it was "the ultimate act of betrayal".

12:50pm on 1 Sep 2014

McNamara is being asked about a very incriminating document titled "Joe Notes", which is apparently a summary of a meeting Joe Tripodi attended with executives from Nathan Tinkler's company Buildev in November 2010.

Buildev sent a helicopter to pick up Tripodi for the meeting and squire him to Newcastle.

Counsel assisting the ICAC, Geoffrey Watson, SC, brings up the helicopter (he is not one to waste an opportunity) before he adds: "Forget those sort of trivialities."

McNamara didn't attend the meeting and can't shed much light on the meeting, where Tripodi and Buildev allegedly plotted about how to block a rival proposal to Tinkler's plans for a coal loader in Newcastle.

Non-Labor MPs in NSW are thoroughly enjoying the evidence as it unfolds on Twitter. Here's a tweet from upper house Greens MP John Kaye, reflecting on Joe Tripodi's claims he was helping a company part-owned by Nathan Tinkler just because he's an "obliging type of person".

What a nice man that Mr Tripodi is. Helping out developer & coal baron because he just helps people. #ICAC

Kristina Keneally's stint in the witness box was all too brief, and was largely finished once she uttered the killer line about the "ultimate act of betrayal".

She is followed into the witness box by Ian McNamara, who has stood aside as Opposition Leader John Robertson's chief of staff during the inqiury.

McNamara, who is known as the Triprotege, did some work in then treasurer Eric Roozendaal's office in early 2011, before Labor was swept from power at the March election.

12:12pm on 1 Sep 2014

The ICAC has heard much evidence that Joe Tripodi, in concert with Nathan Tinkler's company Buildev, ran a smear campaign against the then Newcastle Labor MP Jodi McKay before the last election.

Asked what her reaction would have been if she had known that Labor figures were involved in that campaign, Kristina Keneally says: "I'm not entirely sure the language I would have used should be repeated in this room."

It would be the "ultimate act of betrayal", she says, and is "unthinkable".

Keneally says it would be the "ultimate act of betrayal" for Tripodi or other ALP figures to campaign against their own Jodi McKay #ICAC

"Mrs Keneally, were you aware that Mr Tripodi was engaged with this project at all?" junior counsel assisting the ICAC, Greg O'Mahoney, asks Keneally of Nathan Tinkler's vision splendid for a coal terminal in Newcastle.

"No, I had very few conversations with him [before the election]," Keneally says.

12:04pm on 1 Sep 2014

"We would have moved him out of the office," Kristina Keneally says when asked what would have happened if she had known Labor staffer Ian McNamara was doing work on Buildev's plans for a coal loader while in her office.

The Labor Party needed "nothing less" than people who were 100 per cent focused on the election campaign, she says.

12:01pm on 1 Sep 2014

Now we get to the ticklish subject of Ian McNamara, the stood-aside chief of staff to Opposition Leader John Robertson.

"He did come to work in our office in the lead-up to the election as part of the campaign period," Keneally says.

She says McNamara was "responsible for compiling a list of potential projects" that MPs could campaign on.

"We had a limited amount of money...to make commitments," she says.

The ICAC is investigating whether McNamara assisted Tripodi and Roozendaal in relation to Buildev's plans for a coal loader.

She says she became aware of the old BHP steelworks site in the Newcastle suburb of Mayfield, where Nathan Tinkler's company wanted to build a coal terminal, in 2008 or 2009 when she was planning minister.